Bash script ignores the negative prefix on negative numbers

Question

 a=4;
 b=7;
 c=5;

 x =[ a-b ] 
 if (x -gt c) then {
  echo "x  is  greater"

  } else {
  echo " something"
  }

I want to compare x and c ignoring the negative prefix of c.

You mean like comparing absolute values ? Also, why is your question tagged with `bash` when your code sample isn't a bash script ? — Aserre, Nov 22 '16 at 09:12

Jacek Trociński · Answer 1 · 2016-11-22T14:01:07.290

1

I'm assuming you meant "negative prefix of x". There are a ton of errors in your code, are you sure you're writing in bash?

#!/bin/bash

typeset a=4 b=7 c=5

x=$(( a - b ))
x=${x//-/}

if [[ x -gt c ]]; then
    echo "x  is  greater"
else
    echo " something"
fi

edited Nov 22 '16 at 14:01

answered Nov 22 '16 at 09:23

Jacek Trociński

`bash` is actually very strongly typed; it simply has only *one* type: the string. In place of multiple types, it has distinct operators that *interpret* strings as different values. For example, `-gt` treats its arguments as integers, while `>` treats its arguments as strings. – chepner Nov 22 '16 at 12:50

1 Answers1